Come visit with me as I stitch and craft my way from one Christmas to the next - I like to have Christmas projects close by me all year. I have a particular fondness for Santas and Angels. If you have the time, leave a comment so I know you've visited.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

I have a few smalls to show this month - five finished Christmas ornaments, and one yet to be made up. The big happy dance starts when I finish up the final ornament . It is the last Christmas ornament on my stitching list (and gift list)for this year, and will be my 40th ornament stitched in 2016.

So, the finished ornaments. They all have the same Santa, but different initials. The Santa initials have appeared frequently in my stitching this year, and I really enjoy stitching them. The chart is in LA's Alphabets Galore booklet, and I did make a few changes - 'mending' the missing stitches near the arm, adjusting the face and beard a little, changing floss colours, and removing the tree in Santa's sack. I also slightly changed some of the letters.

The first three are for three young sisters.

The other two are for a young brother and sister.

The unfinished ornament is for one of my nieces, who lives about as far from me as you can get without leaving Australia. It is adapted from 'Give Love for Christmas' by Fran Colburn of Legacy Designs. The chart was printed in JCS Ornament Issue 2015. I made lots of changes, so I can just see the designer pulling out her hair and denying responsibility for the outcome! I changed the fabric, all the floss, and the entire message section. I also stitched the border in 2 colours rather than the one colour charted and did the birds in smyrna cross stitched to help them stand out. I plan to finish this one up in the next day or so. I think this one may be my favourite of all the ornaments I have made this year.

Friday, September 16, 2016

In 1988, Jo was 22. She continued with her career in
Insurance, making friends at work and enjoying the social life a busy office
brings. She also decorated her new home and enjoyed being able to choose her
own colour schemes and finally having a bedroom without her little sister's pop
posters on the walls. Jo's new bedroom was blue with gold stars and moons. She
also went to lots of concerts with the Reading Rock Festival being the main one
that year.

In 1988 I also moved house - into the house in which I currently live, though I have to admit it wasn't my first house, and I was a good 2 decades older than Jo. I can recall moving in with little furniture - just beds, a refrigerator, and four kitchen stools. Gradually other items were added, and now the house is full to overflowing with furniture and 'treasures' (precious to me, but not valuable). It was also the year that cross stitch entered my life (and soon became an addiction). I decided to make lavender sachets for my female relatives (mother, 3 sisters, 2 sisters-in-law, niece, and aunt), and was looking for a way to personalise them. I wandered into a craft shop, and came out an hour later with a metre of 14 count Aida, an assortment of DMC floss, and a Vanessa Ann cross stitch book that included in its pages a floral alphabet. It took me a full week to stitch the first letter, and I do recall resorting to coloured pencils to mark off my chart, to help me see where I had stitched. By Christmas I had made personalised lavender sachets for everyone on my original list, and a good few extras. I had also started a long love affair with cross stitch, which has greatly enriched my life, provided many gifts for family and friends (and sometimes casual acquaintances), and decorated the walls of my house. 1988 was a good year for me!

Home Sampler designed by Linda Gillum, Dimensions

This is one of my favourite stitched samplers. I wish I could have got a clearer pic, because I am aware that this is not the best quality. I stitched it over 2 on 18 count Aida, so it is quite large. I stitched it in 1994, and it sits on my dining room wall, with a Australian floral alphabet sampler I stitched 10 years later.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

It's been a mixed stitching month for me - some happiness, and a lot of despair! First the good news.

I have stitched two more ornaments , and started a third. I still have some beads to add, as well as the finishing into ornaments. They will be Christmas gifts for three delightful Irish-Aussie sisters, children of one of my sister's friends.

And the bad news. The moral here is 'pride goeth before a fall'. I am talking of my progress on HAED Christmas Dreams (chart, fabric, and most of the floss bought with birthday money). I was steaming ahead on Christmas Dreams, till disaster struck. Here is the story:

This is where I was last month. Row 2 finished (12 pages complete).

I had met my stitching target for the year, but decided to keep stitching. By the first week of this month I had almost 15 pages completed, and was feeling very pleased with myself.

And then I noticed that the top of page 3 wasn't matching the bottom of page 2. Major panic, and an hour of counting stitches, and checking charts, and some questionable language and hair pulling. Then the penny dropped - I had repeated the last three stitches on each page in the third row of pages - so I was now 6 stitches out - and it did matter! In my defense, I will point out that because I am stitching sideways, the shaded area on each page, indicating the repeated stitches, didn't coincide with the actual stitches repeated. But I got it right when stitching the first 2 rows of charts - so why would I then forget when stitching row 3! (Hint: advancing age and receding memory.) So, for the past 2 weeks, I have been unpicking my work, Very chastened. I still have about 1/6 of a page to go.

Today it looks like this:

You can see the unpicked area (it looks dirty). When it is all unpicked, I will have just the first 30 rows on page 3 stitched (the first page being a partial page). So, in the end some progress - but not reflective of my stitching (+ unpicking) time, or the angst it caused me! I am afraid this is the final appearance of Christmas Dreams for this year. He is going upstairs for a rest until 2017 - just as soon as I have gone through all the chart pages, and cut off the 'repeated' rows - to make sure that I can't make the same mistake next year.

I hope everyone else had a less stressful stitching time in the past month! And if you have any hints for cleaning up the unpicked area, please pass them on to me.

Size 625 stitches wide x 416 stitches high (66 A4 chart pages, large format). Commenced 1/1/2016. I am stitching on 22 count hardanger, with 2 strands of floss over 1, tent stitch, and I am stitching it sideways, as it was too wide for my frame. My aim is to have it framed and on my wall for Christmas 2020. I have now finished 19 of the 66 pages, and have now stitched 80,546 stitches of the total 260,000 - so it's about 31% completed.

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My Favourite Stitched Santa

This is the largest (and longest) of my many stitching projects over the past 30 years or so. It is HAED JG92105, Jolly Old Fellow (artwork by Dona Gelsinger, charted by Michele Sayetta), which I commenced January 2009, and finished on June 25, 2012. JOF is stitched over 1 on 22 count white hardanger. The charted size is 400 x 509 stitches, but I added 2 stitches to the width, making it 402 wide.